It is often desirable to provide an electronic feature in or at a vehicular interior rearview mirror assembly, such as a trainable garage door opener, a compass sensor and/or compass display, a tire pressure monitoring system receiver and/or display and/or the like, often along with the user inputs or buttons or switches associated with such systems and/or displays. The buttons may comprise manual push buttons positioned along a lower chin portion of the bezel or casing of the mirror assembly or may be touch or proximity-sensing sensors. The buttons or switches are typically not positioned on the mirror reflective element so as to avoid the user contacting the front surface (typically a glass surface) of the reflective element when he or she is actuating the switch or button so as to limit or reduce unsightly fingerprints and smudges on the reflective element that may occur if the user contacts with his or her finger the front surface (typically a glass surface) of the reflective element while actuating a touch-actuated switch or button. Moreover, providing a touch-sensitive front surface for the mirror reflective element may involve specialized and potentially expensive surface coatings on the front surface of the mirror reflective element (for example, a transparent conductive coating such as indium tin oxide or doped tin oxide), which can add considerable cost to the manufacture of the mirror reflective element; and so requires a specialized mirror reflective element.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved mirror assembly which overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art.